There are many designs of fuel delivery assemblies for vehicle fuel tanks. Typically, the wall of the tank has an access opening provided for insertion of the fuel inlet assembly in the tank. The delivery assembly includes a fuel reservoir, a fuel filter, a liquid level sensor apparatus and, often, an in-tank electric fuel pump and fuel conduits. The electric fuel pump, whether in-tank or not, generally has a capacity to pump a greater flow of fuel than the engine utilizes so that a fuel return conduit is commonly provided to return a flow of excess fuel back to the fuel tank. Finally, a base or cover plate supports the aforementioned components and also covers the fuel tank access opening.
The above-described fuel delivery components work well when the fuel inlet is located in closely spaced relation to the fuel tank bottom wall. Modern vehicle lines often share basic components, such as the fuel inlet assemblies described heretofore. Because the fuel tanks of different vehicles often vary in dimension, such as depth, it is desirable to provide a common fuel inlet assembly which is adaptable for use with different tanks.
A number of patents have disclosed the general configuration described above. Namely, a typical fuel inlet assembly is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,557,144. In this patent, a fuel inlet assembly includes a fuel level indicator mechanism, a fuel inlet means and a cover or support plate. The fuel inlet is in the form of a rigid conduit and, thus, the aforesaid desirability of a flexible or resilient assembly for a accommodating tanks of varying depth is not disclosed. Another patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,546,750, disclosed an in-tank fuel pump and reservoir assembly which includes a fuel return conduit. The fuel inlet assembly is in the form of a straight conduit which would not exhibit the required flexibility described above. The U.S. Pat. No. 4,306,844 discloses an assembly including a reservoir supported on the bottom of a fuel tank which itself supports a fuel pump and filter assembly. Lacking is a device to resiliently and flexibly bias the assembly against the tank bottom. A fuel inlet, pump and filter assembly is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,910,464 which discloses a resilient means of mounting the components from an access opening cover member. The resilient means do not provide the flexible downward bias described above, but instead are for the purpose of allowing upward movement of the pump from the pump seat when an application of a large upward or horizontal force is applied to the pump. The U.S. Pat. No. 3,354,905 discloses a gas distributor for a bottle utilizing a spring to hold the outlet to the bottom of the bottle.